The Emporia State University Hornets pounded out 591 yards of total offense, as the Tigers dropped their season opener 43-13 Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe couldn\u2019t get our defense off the field in the first half, and it showed in the second half they were worn out,\u201d Coach Chris Brown said.<\/p>\n
Much like last season\u2019s opener in Emporia the Tigers fell down big early.\u00a0 The Hornets scored on their opening possession of the season as quarterback sophomore Brent Wilson scampered in from 32 yards.\u00a0 Emporia State had a field goal and a 30 yard touchdown pass to Austin Willis, who was the game breaker for the Hornets, catching nine passes for 216 yards and 3 touchdowns, including a 64 yards catch and run.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefensively you can\u2019t just give up the big plays, and we gave up three or four and it cost us,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n
After a first half with only four first downs, the Tigers got a brief injection of momentum when Andreas Ashwood blocked the Hornet’s first punt of the second half.\u00a0 Three plays later, quarterback Treveon Albert would find wide out Keaton Callins for one of his two scoring connections.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just took us awhile to get warmed up,\u201d said Callins.<\/p>\n
On the next Hornet drive the Tiger defense would have a brief lapse as Willis broke free from the secondary.\u00a0 The Tiger defense would hold strong inside the 10 yard line forcing a field goal stretching the lead to two touchdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts like coach said, it\u2019s the little things that killed us,\u201d said Justin McPhail.<\/p>\n
Fort Hays would add one more touchdown, but the Hornets would score the final 16 of the contest to secure their win.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stuff we got is good,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe just need to get more solid on the front line and not give up big plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albert in his first game at quarterback for the Tigers went 15 of 28 for 168 yards and connected two touchdown passes while rushing for 23 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Treveon threw the ball really well for his first game for us, he had the first game jitters, but we hung in there and made some good reads,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n
The return of the Smiths did not live up to the storyline, as both were held in check with the Hornets manning up off the snap.\u00a0 Ed Smith would only get two carries for a net gain of -2 yards and Andre Smith would have 10 carries for 23 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith seven guys in the box and manning up receivers, there\u2019s not much room to run the ball,\u201d said Brown.<\/p>\n
McPhail led the way defensively\u00a0 for Fort Hays who had 14 tackles and one tackle for loss.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmporia State was establishing the run and anytime they do that, that\u2019s going to let me go in there and do my job,\u201d said McPhail.<\/p>\n
Shane Smith and Basil Bandy each had tackles for themselves and linebackers Michael Terry and Alex Schmidtberger added eight tackles.\u00a0 The defense would force one turnover as Daniel Lindsey picked off backup quarterback Corben Jones in the endzone and returned it 43 yards out.<\/p>\n
Fort Hays (0-1,0-1 MIAA) will we back it Saturday Sept.14, and the schedule does not get easier for the Tigers. They travel to Topeka to take on Washburn (1-0, 1-0 MIAA) who demolished fellow MIAA team Nebraska-Kearney 58-13.\u00a0 Kickoff for that game set for 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Emporia State University Hornets pounded out 591 yards of total offense, as the Tigers dropped their season opener 43-13 Thursday night. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t get… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Tigers Drop Season Opener","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3387,7349],"tags":[257,258],"class_list":["post-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-sports","category-sports","tag-esu-hornets","tag-fhsu-tigers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2673,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions\/2673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}